Posted By Safety officer
Does anyone have any stats that show the effectiveness of PAT testing?

For example how many electric shock injuries from portable equipment each year have been reported? Can we see a decrease over the years since PAT testing has been carried out on the scale it is these days?

Posted By Swis
'Common Sense' says PAT testing is 'good' and reduces injuries, hence 'common sense' should prevail.

Plus PAT doesn’t involve ‘high’ costs therefore no need to argue on this.

Posted By Bob Y
No sorry. A test is a test and an inspection is an inspection. Some electrical equipment such as certain class 2 kit does not need to be TESTED but it would need to be INSPECTED.

Posted By Bob Y
Well swis you have to look at what PAT stands for - portable appliance TESTING. Of course we all tend to say PAT testing which actually says Portable Appliance Testing Testing (yes testing twice). There is a duty to maintain electrical equipment, some can be maintained by INSPECTION only, and some require TESTING (hence PAT - for PA Testing) and some by inspection and test. They are two different things but both form part of the maintenance regime. A very cursory glance at INDG 236 will explain the difference between TESTING and INSPECTION. You can maintain electrical equipment without PAT i.e. without actually TESTING.

Posted By Swis
All i said was 'inspection is part of PAT. I never said that inspection is same a PAT.

Posted By Steven McCallum
In my opinion, if the visual inspection is done well and carried out before every use then the need for testing can be stretched out.

The importance for me is the reporting of faults. Plus, the guidance is very generalised due to the different conditions when using electrical equipment. I'm not sure any form of legislation would satisfy everyone.

Posted By Phil Rose
I think that the essence of Safety O's question was whether carrying out loads of PAT testing is a reasonable use of resources in tackling the risks.

In fairness many see PAT testing, and I do mean full testing, often annually, as the way to do things. For many this is not a particularly clever use of limited resources.

As has been pointed out, much of the testing carried out is unnecessary and could be replaced by formal visual inspection only for many items of low risk equipment. This is an approach recommended by the HSE.

I am not sure whether there is any hard data to support one way or another, but of the 100's of actual tests that we carry out very few over the years have failed, and fewer still that wouldn't have been reveled by formal inspection.

So to try and answer the original question "what good is PAT testing" I would think that testing itself although one tool to be used in overall maintenance of electrical equipment, it is overrated, overused and in many cases unnecessary.

Posted By Dave Daniel
SO: Perhaps the lack of any objective response to your actual question is proof enough.
I was Group Safety Adviser to Rover Group when the Electricity at Work Regulations came out in the 1980's and by then I had an accident database covering 50,000 employees on about 20 sites, spanning 9 years.

A trawl through the database of 10,000 LTA's spanning 1980-1989 revealed only 4 electrical accidents, 3 involving qualified electricians trying to hot-wire 440v fuseboxes, and one individual who was stealing copper from one of the foundry sites. It was perhaps unfortunate that the latter individual chose to saw through the largest piece of wire he could see - the main 11kv feed to No.2 cupola ... luckily he survived, unlike his hacksaw.

We found no evidence of any instances of electric shock to equipment users despite the fact that the lads in the factory got up to all sorts of tricks. Several sites did initiate PAT testing on occasions and yes they did find faults, but none led to any serious incident.

At the time we concluded that the risk was demonstrably low and that wide-scale PAT testing could not be justified, a view I hold to this day.

Posted By graeme12345
most legislation was brought in because employers did not look after their employees, so they were made to by law.

And some legislation does in fact reduce the likelihood of an accident occurring and prevents injury

As this legislation describes what you can do to make equipment safe it is up to you how you do it, but make it safe for use you must.

To non safety employees it gives a feeling of something is being done to make their employment a safer place.

I would look at it another way, if one of your employees received a shock and was injured, from some company equipment made a claim and the HSE to you to task you would be glad you carried PATesting out.

Along with the RA's / induction / ongoing training, it would form part of your defence in a court of law

Posted By mark pearson
reflecting on post regarding fire...hears a little story....

We have had a kettle that was plugged in but switched of on kettle, but on at the wall.....

we only work Mon - Fri 8-4 and had a call on the Sunday from the alarm company to say the facility was on fire! it was the kettle that was plugged in and failed for whatever reason that Sunday and started a fire... this fire was only small but still set the alarm off but when the fire engine turned up the fire had been extinguished by........ the water in the top of the kettle! yes!!
also after verifying the records, the kettle was still within combined inspection and test date and the fire with water still had not blown the fuse in the cord or tripped the MCB'S supplying the power!

so PAT test or no Pat test! it is only helping prove due diligence if needed demonstrating that you can manage a number of pieces of electrical equipment.

AS a C&G pat tester with 16th edition and a Beng engineering degree, i do get frustrated when people say about things needed to be tested each year! THAY DONT!! relatively clear guidance is provided by the IEE within the "PAT: Portable Appliance Testing: In-Service Inspection and Testing"

eg construction site equipment some 6 monthly some IT equipment NEVER for a test.

PS have the photos of the kettle somewhere very good for training people in why you should unplug things at night!

Posted By Safety officer
Thank you all very much for contributing to the discussion, that's what I really like about this forum. A good range of views and intelligent posting.

I'm still in two minds about PAT. Peace of mind and a defense on one hand versus an expense and other ways of complying on the other.

Just as an aside I saw some companies records today. They had had 120 items PAT tested in one day. I'm not sure how long each test SHOULD take but 120 in one day..... you have to question the quality of the test. It would take me all day just to peel of and write 120 stickers let along do the test as well... hmmm

Posted By Steve Cartwright
Safety Officer

120 items in a day is not very much. Once electrical appliance is plugged into PAT tester it probably takes less than a minute to complete the test. Most of the time is spent untangling all the cables under the desks.

If there is two of you carrying out the testing you'd be supprised how many appliances you can get through.